Information systems have become integrated into the daily lives of people and businesses on a global scale, and the field of information security has likewise become increasingly important in today's society. However, such wide scaled integration has also presented many opportunities for malicious operators to exploit these systems. Once malicious software has infected a host computer, it can perform any number of malicious actions, such as sending out spam or malicious emails from the host computer, stealing sensitive information from a business or individual associated with the host computer, propagating to other host computers, and/or assisting with distributed denial of service attacks. In addition, for some types of malware, a malicious operator can sell or otherwise give access to other malicious operators, thereby escalating the exploitation of the host computers. Thus, the ability to effectively protect and maintain stable computers and systems continues to present significant challenges for component manufacturers, system designers, and network operators.